It is a common slogan that one that says to overcome one’s limits.
Man has always done it.
All discoveries, achievements are a consequence of overcoming limits.
It is the discovery of America, when Columbus wanted to overcome the limits of the then known world, challenging the ocean.
It is the conquest of all the peaks, when mountaineers braved the thin air and the cold temperatures to get where no one had ever been before.
Now that everything is discovered, conquered and achieved, the enterprises are of another kind.
Unless extraordinary abilities and possibilities allow the conquest of other planets.
So there are those who cross entire continents on foot and those who go around the world by bicycle.
There are those who cross the oceans by rowing and those who do so in a balloon.
And then there are the disabled.
There are so many stories of people with disabilities doing something extraordinary.
Or at least extraordinary in relation to their disability.
And then we have the blind man who reaches the top of Everest or the disabled moyorio who does it with prosthetic legs.
One wonders what sense these stories have.
Why do they do it?
The answer is not unambiguous and should be asked to those directly involved.
At the base there is certainly a desire for revenge against those limits imposed by life.
Then there is the passion.
If a person likes the mountains, it does not have to be the physical or sensory limit to curb the desire to live intense experiences.
So if on the one hand reaching the top of Everest or any other very high mountain is an experience that requires preparation and technique, on the other hand they are wonderful adventures in themselves.
The views, temperatures and encounters that are experienced in an environment outside one’s daily routine are a personal enrichment.
The recent initiative of Dario and Pompea on the Monte Rosa massif was presented from the beginning as an event of two sensory disabled who want to live a high mountain experience.
Aware that the favorite narrative of the press is that of winning stories, they wanted to reach La Capanna Margherita, the highest refuge in Europe, at any cost.
However, the weather conditions and the precariousness of the glacier in this anomalous year made the mountain guides decide to stop at 4,100 meters.
Obviously the bitterness for the renunciation was great.
But it took a few steps downhill to begin to metabolize the idea that it was not a defeat.
The term defeat presupposes a match.
And race was not.
Now, after a few days, the epilogue of this story aligns with the narrative that two sensory disabled must, by force of what, feel part of their life.
Blindness, low vision, hearing loss impose limits that cannot be overcome.
There is little to do and to go around it,
Just to give an example, even if you want to drive a car you can’t.
There is an objective limit.
Likewise nature teaches this.
There are limits that cannot be overcome.
The exposed crevasses of a glacier, as well as the danger of a storm in the high mountains are objective data.
Unsurpassable limits unless you want to take a high risk for your own safety and that of others.
Trivially, a partially sighted person who drives a car runs the same risk.
So the spirit of adventure is okay, it’s okay to try to have experiences that make us feel alive, it’s okay to choose fatigue, discomfort, suffering in the name of new, strong, electrifying sensations.
But within certain limits.
Those that, in fact, are limits.
